Just Because
by Auditory Eden
Summary: Also Known As: Life Isn't Fair, Get Over It. Some months after the events of S06E23, Hannah discovers that, actually, it really is over. NOT Hannah bashing, although it is B 2


Author: Auditory Eden

Rating: T

Warnings: Spoilers for S06E23, "The Change in the Game". Sort of.

Notes: Clearly inspired by the recent season finale (which I only just watched today, to my shame). Hannah did make a comment about it "not being over", but at this point I think she's probably not coming back. Still, this just sort of...happened. Again, trying to show that she's a woman, not an emotionless robot or a vapid bitch, and just as entitled to jealousy as the next rebound girl who gets dumped when he goes back to the one before her.

Just Because

Otherwise known as Life Isn't Fair, Get Over It

She hadn't left DC after she rejected Booth. Hannah Burley had a flat now, with a roommate she wasn't dating because they were both single, straight career women. When she'd shot him down, she'd told him it wasn't over.

She'd believed it.

It was nearly nine months later that she next saw a member of Booth's team. She was at the mall looking for a dress to wear to an event she was supposed to be reporting on, and she saw Temperance Brennan and Angela Montenegro exiting a department store about fifty feet to her left. Angela had clearly had her baby; the tiny infant was strapped to her side in a cloth sling. Brennan, though...

Brennan was glowing and round and looked like the epitome of joyful motherhood, which was surprising because Hannah was pretty sure that Temperance had not been dating or interested in anyone when they'd all parted ways. She had to be at least seven months along, which would mean that Brennan had found a man she loved and decided to have a child within three months. Idly, Hannah wondered who the father could be.

Then Hodgins appeared with another man at his side, and Hannah felt as though she'd been slapped and simultaneously kicked in the stomach.

The other man's silhouette was unmistakable; the square shoulders, tall strength...It was Seeley Booth, and damned if he wasn't walking up to Temperance Brennan and taking her hand, kissing her lightly on the mouth as Hodgins and Angela negotiated bag-carrying.

How on earth had that happened? Last Hannah had known of their relationship Brennan had been futilely attempting to move on while Booth nursed the wound of rejection and threw himself into his relationship with her, Hannah.

Now, nine months later, and he was kissing his pregnant partner at the mall?

She'd left the shopping center in a daze, home before she realized she's hailed a taxi. The threshold tripped her as she walked in, and she sort of just sat there for a few minutes, staring at the floor.

Considering she'd been the one to dump him, she hadn't thought it would hurt so much when she found he'd moved on, and try as she might she couldn't begin to be happy for him or Temperance. She felt slightly more guilty about the latter; Bones, as Booth had always called her, had explained about her childhood. At the time she'd thought sympathetically that Brennan could use a good, loving man like Seeley. The operative word there, she reflected, was _like_. Not Seeley himself, but someone like him. Now she was just sick with envy; Hannah simply couldn't remember Seeley ever looking that happy with her.

"What are you doing?" the sharp voice of Dominique, her flatmate, asked acerbically. Hannah looked up blearily.

"What are you doing, sitting there with the door open," the voice continued, then became concerned. "Are you sick or something?"

"I—" Hannah shook her head slowly. "No, I'm not...sick...Just..."

Dominique sighed, frustrated. "Well, stand up," she ordered. Hannah obeyed mutely, allowing her roommate to shut the door after her.

"Coffee," the other woman proscribed firmly, leading Hannah into the kitchenette and sitting her down. "Now talk." This order was punctuated by the flipping of the switch on the coffee maker.

The blonde was silent for a while, before she opened her mouth. "I told you about Seeley, right?"

"You were going to wait a few months and then try to get back together with him," Dominique remembered aloud.

"He's moved on."

The words rang in the tiny room for a while before Dominique said, "He shot you down?"

"No," Hannah shook her head. "No, it's worse than that. I saw him today, at the mall. He was there with Temperance."

"His partner?" Dominique confirmed. "Isn't that...not unusual?"

Hannah grimaced. "She was pregnant. At least in her third trimester. They kissed, so somehow I find myself doubting he's just being a supportive friend to his single mother of a partner."

Dominique was silent for a moment as she dosed coffee into a mug and set it down in front of the blonde. "He look happy?"

Hannah nodded miserably. "Never seen him happier," she muttered. "Especially not with me."

It was another long moment before Dominique continued her end of the dialogue. "You said she'd shot him down in the past? Then after their hiatus thing, where he met you, she'd come to terms with it and basically confessed to him?"

"I don't want to hear it, if you're going to tell me it was inevitable."

Dominique shrugged. "Way I see it, she rejects him. He goes to Iraq to get away from her, she runs away to Africa—"

"Indonesia," Hannah corrected.

"Whatever, to get away from him. She comes back ready and raring to go? He probably pushed her too far, and, like an elastic, that which is stretched too far always snaps back to where it should be." Dominique nodded sagely.

Hannah snorted. "I wish I could say you were wrong," she told her roommate in a watery sort of voice. "Here's the thing; she told me why she rejected him; it was to protect him. She thought she'd hurt him just by being with him, so she told him no."

"You were doomed from the start, Hahn," Dominique told her with finality. "No offense meant."

"It only took him three months to move on, Dom!" Hannah exploded. "Three months. Three months between asking me to marry him and getting her pregnant, at least. Where does he get off doing that?"

"Where do you get off caring?" Dominique asked her a little savagely. "_You_ gave him up, _you_ shot him down, and by the sounds of things the only thing stopping them getting together the minute they got back from their little purgatories was _you_."

"I didn't think I would!" Hannah cried, and she felt all her career woman resolve crumbling under her feet. "I'm not the marrying kind, I wasn't then and I'm not now! But I loved him, I loved Seeley Booth and it only took him three months to forget me! Less, if we're assuming they decided to get pregnant before it actually happened."

"She might not actually be that far along," Dom pointed out reasonably. "She could be pregnant with twins or something."

The deeply scathing look Hannah graced her with was answer enough, and she shrugged. "Whatever, fine. You've ranted, I've listened. You gonna be okay?"

Hannah sighed. "Yeah, probably," she acknowledged. She took a sip of the black coffee and felt her jangling nerves begin to settle. It's not perfect, she reflects, but it will do. She'll be alright.

And maybe, just maybe, she feels a tiny glow of happiness for Temperance Brennan.

xXx

Parting Comments: I think Dominique is a black girl. I don't mean to be racist or anything, I'm just mentioning it. I really wanted to write her character more like Caroline, something a white woman can't really pull off...and she just had a sort of character vibe...Plus Dominique is a French name...maybe her family's from Haiti or the Cote d'Ivoire or something...

Gee, random much?

Hugs and Kisses,

Eden


End file.
